


Sunny-Side Up or Scrambled?

by Sans_Souci



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Chemistry, Cooking, Drabble, Feels, Gen, Headcanon, Holmes Brothers, Holmes Brothers' Childhood, Science, Sherlock is one of those kids, Siblings, Slice of Life, kids can be mean, parental neglect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-11
Updated: 2013-10-11
Packaged: 2017-12-29 02:50:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/999980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sans_Souci/pseuds/Sans_Souci
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Home for the holidays. Mycroft tries to get Sherlock to help with breakfast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunny-Side Up or Scrambled?

**Author's Note:**

> Aka it took me this long to realise, in the middle of Season 2 Episode 3 feels and much incoherent flailing, that _both_ the Holmes brothers know their way around a kitchen.
> 
> I am the most unobservant fan in the world. And then this headcanon smacked me between the eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Summer holidays in the Holmes household tended to be awkward affairs. Mycroft often came back to the absence of a father and the presence of a younger brother who was growing taller and increasingly sharp-tongued by the semester.

Members of their family were not prone to be demonstrative and the distance provided by various academic institutions had only widened the gulf between them. Somehow or other, Sherlock had inherited the drive and energy that Mycroft never had at that age.

At times, Mycroft wished that they would just take a cottage by the seaside like everyone else so that Sherlock could find some poor washed-up jellyfish to poke at. His brother obviously needed more outlets for his curiosity than schooling could satisfy.

At other times, he was seized by the odd notion that he ought to be responsible for his younger brother and his general wellbeing. Sherlock was at the age at which his peers were cheerfully inhaling sherbet fountains and running around after footballs. Sherlock was more interested in finding ways to cause minor explosions with sherbet fountains and Mycroft occasionally tried to keep him out of trouble and in one piece.

Like this morning. He was attempting to get Sherlock to help with the cooking and actually eat a proper breakfast instead of some sugary packaged cornflakes straight from the box.

Sherlock was being difficult, as usual. "We have a cook."

"It's Mrs Allen's day off," Mycroft said as he set the pan on the stove. It might not have been wise to introduce young children to hot surfaces, no matter how precocious they were, but Sherlock had learned how to operate a Bunsen burner before his seventh birthday.

"We could just go out and pick up something from the nearest takeaway."

"It's about . . . _independence_ ," Mycroft said at last. He suspected that Sherlock, like himself, would probably leave in search of a life out of the shadow of their father once he attained his majority. There was a sort of spring-loaded wildness about his younger brother that was only _partially_ due to the fact that he was ten.

In fact, he could imagine an older Sherlock in a dingy student bedsit, eating cornflakes straight out of the box in between experimenting with corrosive chemicals.

Sherlock still looked sceptical. "It's not as though I'll need to cook at school." 

He looked pointedly at Mycroft's waist and added, "You’re obviously a subscriber to school dinners and all the stodge they serve for pudding."

Children were often cruel and his brother was no exception. Mycroft took a deep breath and picked up an egg. "It's also about chemistry. In fact, most of cooking is chemistry. Altering the structure of molecules in food."

In spite of his earlier disdain, Sherlock was looking more interested as the egg was cracked into the pan.

"It's just about controlling the temperature until you achieve the desired result. Sunny-side up or scrambled?"

It took Sherlock a moment to realise that he was being asked a question. "Scrambled," he replied, climbing up on a kitchen stool to watch.

Encouraged by his brother's interest, Mycroft continued to explain as he scrambled the eggs. "The protein molecules in the egg yolk and whites will undergo denaturation. New bonds will form as they cook, hence the more solid texture that results from heating eggs."

"And what does that do?" Sherlock queried as a splash of milk and a knob of butter were added. "Break up the protein structures so that you don't get hard scrambled eggs?"

"And adds to the taste. You can research how taste buds work later," Mycroft said briskly as he laid rashers of bacon down flat on the griddle. "Make the toast without experimenting on how long the bread takes to carbonise please."

Sherlock looked a little mulish, but the smells coming from the frying pan probably reminded him that dinner had been a good twelve hours ago. He went to fetch the bread.

Of course, their momentary domestic truce was just that--momentary and short-lived. Sherlock fell out of a tree while trying to examine a birds' nest before lunch and had to be taken to the hospital for stitches.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Years later, Sherlock was still able to produce a good plate of scrambled eggs and his one-pan fry-ups were really quite decent.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


End file.
